


if i could trade mistakes for sheep

by TechnicalTragedy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, The Eleventh Hour Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: Merle's worst, most fixable mistake.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've written a lot about magnus and taako but i gotta be sure to give flower grandpa some love. <3 that party boy.

Merle's worst, most fixable mistake:

The scene is frozen in time, the crystal shard stuck falling, Merle's arm (his flesh and blood arm, his nerve endings, his sinew and bone) outstretched as the false voice of Pan tells him to grab the shard.

Merle steps forward into the memory, coming to stand beside his past self. It's tempting, sure, especially when he remembers the phantom pains, the waking up from sleep and forgetting, the fact that his new arm makes him so reliant on a God he doesn't trust anymore. Merle's never been one for regrets, has always been more of a believer in lessons, but the loss of his arm has been more of a lesson than he cares for. He misses his arm, he does, and the Chalice hit the nail on the head when it called him incomplete. He still feels that way, some days.

But he knows what happens to Reclaimers that use Grand Relics. He still sees Gundren's scorched body in his sleep.

"You can be whole," the Chalice says.

Merle puts his hand on his past self's shoulder. He takes a moment to recall the last time he'd had his arm. His tree arm twists and curls, reacting to his thoughts. He wants his arm back, but if it's all the Chalice has to offer him in exchange for betraying his friends, his organization, and himself, in a way, it's nowhere near tempting.

"I am," Merle says, quiet, mostly to himself.

"What was that?" the Chalice asks.

Merle turns to her, to June, and looks at her. He really looks at her. She's young-looking, but she's got older eyes, eyes like an ancient. But Merle knows she ain't older than him, not by a long shot. The Chalice, maybe, but June is still in there, and it's her that Merle can see straight down to.

"I am whole," he says. "I know we goof off and joke around, but those boys - Magnus and Taako - they're my family. And they help make me whole. I'm sure you can remember what family felt like, and I know you remember how that kind of love feels. So hopefully you also know why I have to decline the offer. Family's all we got, in the end."

The scene around them changes. Gundren's smoking husk of a body replaces June. "You couldn't save your real family, Merle Highchurch," the Chalice says through Gundren's cracked, blackened mouth. Flames still lick over him, and Gundren's screams in a cacophony of voices, reminding Merle eerily of Legion.

The scene changes again, Gundren's replaced with Hecuba's image, wreathed in sweet smoke, judging him. "You couldn't even keep your wife. Is family really what matters in the end? Or are you just afraid?" Hecuba grows in size, no longer a dwarf but a giant, space twisting around her until they're left in darkness with only the snarling, hissing visage of Merle's ex-wife visible.

Surprising himself, Merle finds that he isn't afraid. "I'm not afraid," he says, still speaking soft. He doesn't need to be loud right now, not in this negative space. "I know they aren't here, and if they were I would never say this 'cause they'd never stop making fun of me, but Taako and Magnus? There's not much that could convince me to turn on them. Not after everything we've been through." He grins. "So, thanks, but no thanks. Take your offer and shove it."

In a fraction of a second, the blink of an eye, June is back, and the white space is back, and Magnus and Taako are on either side of Merle, frozen in position like the world's most realistic wax statues.

"That's very noble of you, Merle," says June. "I hope you can maintain that mindset."

Soon after, Merle and his shitty, makeshift, almost-family are in Phandalin again, seeing Gundren, and everyone they don't know, swallowed by fire. It's tragic, it's sad, but Merle knows that these two boys next to him, that the Bureau, that the Relics and the world, are worth Phandalin.

Later, as he watches the years in Refuge speed past in minutes, Merle knows it was, and it is, and it will be - it has to be - worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> come fix mistakes with me on tumblr [@aramente](http://aramente.tumblr.com)


End file.
